My chief virtue (or if you like, defect) has been a tireless lifelong search for an original, individual musical idiom. I detest imitation, I detest hackneyed devices.
"Sergei Prokofiev: Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences". Book by Sergei Prokofiev, Edited by S. Shlifstein and translated by Rose Prokofieva, p. 7, 1960.
